Indiana + Cummins + Nissan = one hardcore truck

“I kid you not, everyone I’ve told about the upcoming Nissan Titan XD having a Cummins diesel engine have said it will be an incredible truck —hands down. But exactly why is everyone so sure about that?”

Here is how many conversations have gone regrading this subject:

Me: Cummins is building the diesel engine for the new Titan.

Them: Any truck with a Cummins is one to own.

Me: Hold on, you don’t know anything about the truck itself.

Them: Does it have a Cummins diesel engine in it?

Me: Yes.

Them: Then it will be a great truck.

Me: $#$%^*

Cummins Engine Company

In 1899, at the mature and responsible age of eleven years old, Clessie Lyle Cummins found himself tinkering with parts laying around his family’s farm in rural Indiana. By tinkering, I meant to say he built his very first steam engine, by eleven, I meant, eleven-freaking-years-old. For the next few years Clessie used his skills to help his parents with farm machinery, as well as to make a living as a local mechanic —a quite prominent one.

Fast forward twelve years to 1911, and young Clessie is now a mature and strapping lad of twenty-two years of age. In typical boy-genius fashion, Clessie became a mechanic advisor, nowadays called “race engineer” to a race car driver named Ray Harroun.

Clessie was responsible for advising Harroun on engine performance and championed vital tasks like improving speed, reliability and overall engine development. Clessie Cummins and Ray Harroun went on to win the very first running of a small race called —the Indianapolis 500.

Photo Credit: Vanderbiltcupraces.com

Since then, Cummins has grown massively and currently operates in 190 countries, and employs nearly 55,000 people across six continents. More importantly, Cummins Engine Company is still headquartered in the same Columbus, Indiana plant that Clessie originally founded. Although it has been expanded a total of twenty-three times!

The Nissan and Cummins Partnership

It’s safe to say the plan for building a Cummins diesel engine for Nissan was birthed around five years ago. Since then, countless engineers, designers and mechanics, some whom I know personally have lived and breathed “Nissan Titan” day and night… and probably even during their sleep.

During a recent media tour of the Cummins plant where the all-new Cummins 5.0-liter V8 Turbo Diesel is currently undergoing production, both Nissan and Cummins representatives emphasized how this particular engine developed for the upcoming XD model will not fit the traditional engine model in the pickup market. Instead, they’ve focused on building a turbo diesel engine that stands alone between the smaller 1,500 and larger 2,500 diesel offerings.

Warranted by years of focus-group research and over four-million miles of engine testing, Nissan and Cummins are confident they’ve developed a turbo diesel engine with excellent horsepower, torque, vibration and noise ratings. Although everyone during our tour made sure to keep fuel-efficiency numbers a top-secret.

Engine Specifications:

Name: Cummins 5.0-liter V8 Turbo Diesel.

Horsepower: 310-horsepower

Torque: 555 lb-ft.

Towing Capacity: 12,000-lbs.

Material: Composite Graphite Iron.

The 2016 Nisan Titan XD

Nissan has hinted that the Titan will be on sale before the end of 2015, and it will in fact be the Cummins Diesel powered XD model that will lead the charge for the new-generation Titan.

The Titan will be assembled at Nissan’s Canton, Mississippi plant and will receive its engines from the main Cummins Plant in Columbus, Indiana, where they are assembled and tested after receiving the castings from Mexico and Brazil.

It is rumored that a Nissan Titan XD will be available for test-drive at a media event I will be attending in a couple of month’s time. (Yes, I’m trying to be discreet) So stay tuned for more!

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